Farmer Behaviour Insight Project
Understanding Farm-Household Management Decision-Making for Increased Productivity In the Eastern Gangetic Plains
“Applying behavioural economics to understand farm-household decision-making in technology adoption for improving food security and reducing poverty.”
Our Project
The Farmer Behaviour Insights Project evaluates the value of behavioural economics in understanding decision making by farm women and men, and use these behavioural insights to design/re-design, test and assess selected interventions in agricultural extension, input provision and agricultural service delivery in the Eastern Gangetic Plains.
We will incorporate behavioural insights to better reflect the context of smallholders in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, and focus on smallholder adoption and adaptation of conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification.
Our Research Question
Can behavioural economics better explain adoption and adaptation decisions than the conventional adoption models, and if so, how can it be used to “nudge” farmers to adopt and adapt conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification technologies?
Our Challenge
Poverty and food security remain a challenge in many developing countries. Many of the poor live in the Eastern Gangetic Plains of South Asia, and most of them are smallholder farmers.
Various farming innovations, such as improved conservation agriculture, water management and marketing systems to increase productivity and resilience to climate change, are being developed through agricultural research. Conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification technologies have been introduced in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, but the uptake and impact of innovation varies widely.
Adoption and adaptation of new technologies depend on farm management decisions made by farm-households. Most studies have focused on determinants of adoption of simple technologies (e.g., improved varieties, fertilizer use) using conventional socio-economic adoption theories. But innovative ways to explain adoption of complex technologies and farming systems innovations are needed.
Our research aims to provide empirical evidence on the role of behavioural factors including the use of shortcuts, reliance on biases and stereotypes, self-control problems and social preferences on the decision-making by farming households to improve adoption and, hence, alleviate poverty in the region.
Our Partners
The project is funded by the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and being implemented by the University of Western Australia (UWA) in collaboration with the University of New England (UNE) and national research and academic institutions from Bangladesh, India and Nepal. The project involves a multidisciplinary team consisting of experts in various areas of agriculture, economics and sociology.